The Will to Live Is My Strongest Skill

​The air in the foothills grew sharp. Instead of nourishing my lungs, it felt as though it were tearing them apart from the inside, drawing blood.

​The last bastion of civilization—a shelter dubbed the "Mountain Echo"—proved to be a sagging hovel constructed from unhewn boulders. The proprietor, an old man with a face like tanned leather, stared intently at Mare for a long time, and then at me.

​"She won't make it any further," he grunted, spitting onto the ground. "The scree up on the Dragon’s Teeth Pass is so bad her hooves will slide. Leave her here."

​I nodded.

​"I need additional fur wraps and three rations of dried meat," I said, unbuckling the saddle girth. "Take her. The tack as well."

​The old man narrowed his eyes, clearly calculating his profit. Mare was worth at least five times what I was asking for.

​"It’s a deal, traveler."

​An hour later, I was already ascending the mountain. All of my gear now fit into a single rucksack. I tied my cloak tightly so it wouldn't flap in the wind, and donned another layer of boiled wool underneath.

​The ascent to the pass took two days.

​At an altitude of eight thousand feet, the real problems began. The metal turned to ice. Eridan steel conducted the cold flawlessly, and I could feel the prosthesis quite literally siphoning the warmth from my shoulder, turning the joint into a piece of numb meat. My algorithms repeatedly signaled the risk of frostbite to the living tissue surrounding the mounts. I had to stop every half hour to rub my shoulder to keep the blood circulating.

​On a narrow ledge where the trail constricted to barely thirty centimeters, the masters of these heights lay in wait.

​Snow Goblins.

​They bore no resemblance to their forest kin. These creatures were pale, with elongated fingers tipped in bony claws. They communicated via short whistles that could easily be mistaken for the howling of the wind.

​There were three of them. One dropped from above, while the other two blocked the path ahead. I pressed my back against the rock face, drawing my sword with my left hand. I thrust my right arm forward to serve as a shield.

​"Too narrow for maneuvers," I muttered to myself.

​The lead goblin lunged, swinging a serrated knife. I met it with a strike from the prosthesis. The second goblin, dropping from above, attempted to claw at my face.

​I didn't even bother looking up. My reflexes operated on their own. I angled the blade and felt the steel slide into the creature's soft underbelly.

​The third goblin, seeing how rapidly its companions had perished, hissed and vanished into a crevice above. I didn't pursue it—I needed to conserve oxygen.

​But the mountains decided this trial was insufficient.

​Just as the summit of the pass came into view ahead, the ground beneath my feet violently shuddered. A colossal wall of gray stone and white snow was hurtling down the slope directly at me.

​[THREAT ANALYSIS]

​Survival probability in current position: 0.04%

​Time to impact: 3.2 seconds

​At that moment, I was left with no choice.

​I closed my eyes for a fraction of a second, activating a skill I hadn't touched in nearly a year.

​The world exploded in color, then instantly bleached into shades of gray. The roar of the avalanche slowed to a thick, viscous grind. Time did not stop, but it became malleable. The trajectories of the falling debris traced themselves in my mind as bright vectors.

​I leaped.

​The first fragment of rock became my foothold. I launched myself off it, feeling the pistons within the Centurion howl under the extreme overload. Twisting in mid-air, I vaulted over the flying trunk of a mountain cedar and landed on another boulder that was rapidly plunging downward.

​One leap. A second. A third.

​When the avalanche settled and the final wave of snow dust dissipated, I found myself on a small ledge well above the impact zone.

​The skill deactivated.

​The world regained its color, and with it came the pain. I collapsed to my knees, clutching at the freezing air. My lungs burned; a heavy, dull vein of pain throbbed in the back of my head. Nausea welled up in my throat.

​But… something had shifted.

​I remembered how, after the Rift, I hadn't been able to move a single finger for nearly an entire day. My mind had turned to mush back then. Now, despite the tremor in my muscles and the nausea, my thoughts remained clear. My neural pathways had seemingly… adapted.

​"Progress…" I rasped, wiping cold sweat from my forehead.

​I stood up, bracing myself against the Centurion.

​An hour later, I took my final step and stood upon the highest point of the Dragon’s Teeth Pass. The wind here was of such force that it actively tried to hurl me back down.

​Not far from the trail, I located a small cave. I lacked the strength to go any further today. Kindling a minuscule fire from the remnants of some brushwood, I settled near the entrance, leaning my back against the stone.

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